A whole-brain approach to trauma therapy
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If you’ve tried traditional cognitive behavioral therapy and still can’t escape feeling as though you're broken, it may be time to try something new.
Traditional cognitive approaches work hard to treat the conscious brain, where there is an awareness of symptoms. But conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction, thought rumination, and eating disorders are rooted in the unconscious part of the brain where analysis and language cannot access.
Instead of focusing on coping with symptoms,
a whole-brain approach aims to eliminate them.
Somatic Therapy and EMDR are whole-brain approaches that tend to both the conscious and unconscious brain, which allows us to address how the body has been conditioned to engage in bothersome thoughts, unwanted feelings, and maladaptive behaviors as a way to regulate the nervous system. Through the incorporation of the body within the therapeutic process, we can rebalance what has been unbalanced.
EMDR stands for Eye Move Desensitization and Reprocessing. It works directly with survival memories trapped in the amygdala. In as little as one session, a year's worth of regular talk therapy progress can be made.
Somatic Movement Therapy aims to reconnect individuals with the physical sensations in their bodies, discharge chronic muscle tension, and enter into a state of deep relaxation.
Brainspotting is bred from Somatic Experiencing and EMDR. Its unique signature is the assertion that "where you look affects how you feel." We find the Brainspot to bring about healing and reprocess trauma.
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Polyvagal Theory conceptualizes 3 distinct nervous systems within our Autonomic Nervous System, and their hierarchical relationship for how humans respond to novelty in their environment. The symptoms experienced by a trauma survivor reflects which parts of the nervous system are overdeveloped, and which parts are underdeveloped.
Somatic Experiencing is a trauma therapy that works directly with the body, or soma, to alleviate symptoms related to mood and anxiety disorders, trauma diagnoses, chronic health concerns, and many more.
Psychodrama strives to make the implicit explicit - meaning we work intentionally with the right hemisphere of the brain to gain insight into our emotionally latent experiences, restoring our body wisdom.
Attachment is an internal map of our sense of relational safety. It reflects our reception to unconscious cues that people are safe or unsafe. Following this map, we unconsciously behave in a way that will bring us closer to safety.
The theoretical framework of CBT asserts that by changing one's thoughts, you can change one's emotions, which ultimately will lead to changes in behavior. The thoughts that need to be changed are calling "thinking errors". The belief is that if we abstain from engaging in our thinking errors, then we will not be activated by stimuli in our environment.
Internal Family Systems is one of many Ego-State therapies we are trained in. Ego-states reference the compartmentalization of our personality. The goal in this work is to integrate these experiences.
Art Therapy is a means of processing information stuck on the right hemisphere of the brain. Through expressive modalities, an individual's sense of self and ability to function fully is restored.
Somatic Inquiry, a body-based healing practice, is a specific approach to asking the body questions. Whereas the mind might answer a question with reason and logic, the body answers with physical sensation.